Sauerkraut, our greatest teacher. 5 life lessons from fermented vegetables

First thing: forget vinegar. We're talking here about fermentation. 

There are recipes for making sauerkraut. Here's one. Here's another. You don't really need anything other than this:

Cut vegetables up. Sprinkle with salt. Bash around a bit (or not, if you can't be bothered). Shove into a jar. Top up with water if necessary. Use a jar or similar to keep the vegetables below the water level. Leave. Top up with water if the level goes down. Make sure the vegetables stay under water. Try it every few days. Put in the fridge when it's to your satisfaction.

That's it. An easy way to keep your vegetable intake up. Tangy, nice with some meat. Lasts forever. Great! But the real gift is in how it changes your world.

Some Sauerkraut

1. You know the world isn't just a collection of visible objects, but you don't quite believe it, not really. Watching something change through the interaction of millions of bacteria who are making something to eat: that's a trip.
2. It subtly undermines an internalised worldview that something's value comes from its price, and that legitimacy is conferred through capitalism and exchange, i.e. it is good because it comes from a shop.
3. You have to rely on your senses. It is ready when you think it tastes nice. Not when Giles Coren says it tastes nice. 
4. It is not a recipe but a process. You're not making something, you're allowing something. Or watching something. The world is not a collection of static objects moved around by people with agency.
5. The recognition that you may not be who you think you are. You are not a single voiced "soul" housed in a flesh robot. You are a system and collection of cells, many of whom (bacteria) do not share "your" DNA. You are a community. Embracing that, and looking after the little guys, can have a huge effect on your health, immunity and mood.

I can say these things, and you may find them plausible, but it is only in doing that we internalise the ancient wisdom of the veg picklers.

Just make some sauerkraut already. 

Better Living Through Fermented Vegetables

I've just been chopping cabbage for sauerkraut.

I need to do a series of posts on the glories and wisdom of sauerkraut. It may be the simplest, most cost effective way to improve your life. It's doesn't even have to be cabbage. I'm quite partial to some sauerrüben, myself. And of course sour beets.

People often say, "this book changed my life" when what they mean is they really liked it. Well, this book might actually change your life, Sandor Ellix-Katz's Wild Fermentation. He can get a bit freaky deaky, but in its essentials it's killer.

Here's a video of the man. The book also includes yoghurt, cheese, bread and booze.

There are profound insights ahead for anyone willing to stuff some grated carrot in a jar.